Ortiz confirmed as US attorney, a historic selection for Mass.
Carmen M. Ortiz, who grew up in a humble setting in New York City’s tough Spanish Harlem neighborhood, has been confirmed as the new US attorney for Massachusetts, the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job of the state’s top federal prosecutor.
Ortiz, 53, nominated by President Obama, was confirmed by the US Senate late Thursday by unanimous consent, according to Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office. Ortiz is expected to be sworn in shortly.
She succeeds Michael K. Loucks, who has been serving as acting US attorney since Michael J. Sullivan, a George W. Bush appointee, resigned in April after 7 1/2 years on the job.
“I am truly honored and humbled by the confidence President Obama has shown in me by appointing me as the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts,’’ Ortiz said in a statement yesterday.
Ortiz, whose name was forwarded to Obama in May by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and by Senator John F. Kerry, said she and Kennedy spoke on the phone at the time about the importance of public service.
“I told Senator Kennedy that if confirmed, I would make him proud, and I intend to honor his legacy,’’ she said.
Her father worked in the garment industry, drove a cab, and finally opened a gift shop, she said in a Globe interview in May. Her mother sold Avon products to help make ends meet. The family later moved to Long Island.
The eldest of five children, Ortiz, who lives in Milton, attended Adelphi University and received a full scholarship to George Washington University Law School in Washington, from which she graduated in 1981.
She worked as a prosecutor in the Middlesex district attorney’s office and has worked for the US attorney’s office for the past 12 years, most recently in the economic crimes unit.
She drew perhaps the most public attention when she was not a prosecutor. She was working at the Center for Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School in 1990 when she served on a commission assigned by the NFL commissioner to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against members of the Patriots.
In another unusual role, Ortiz served on the “October Surprise’’ team for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1992, during which she investigated allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign sought to delay the release of the US hostages in Iran to affect the 1980 presidential election.
